


Asymmetry

by Lywinis



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, and sprinklings of hurt/comfort, but that's what 6000 years of pining will do to you, there are also some feels throughout, this is pure and unadulterated silliness and I apologize for nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 23:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lywinis/pseuds/Lywinis
Summary: In which Aziraphale doesn't have time to find a new vessel during Armageddon, and so Crowley offers up his.This goes as well as can be expected.Which is to say, not well at all.





	Asymmetry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bearfeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearfeathers/gifts), [calico_fiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calico_fiction/gifts).



> 
>       _So have you got the guts?
>     Been wondering if your heart's still open and if so I wanna know what time it shuts
>     Simmer down and pucker up
>     I'm sorry to interrupt. It's just I'm constantly on the cusp of trying to kiss you
>     I don't know if you feel the same as I do
>     But we could be together if you wanted to
>     
>     (Do I wanna know?)
>     If this feeling flows both ways?
>     (Sad to see you go)
>     Was sort of hoping that you'd stay
>     (Baby, we both know)
>     That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day_
>     

Crowley was, in fact, far too drunk for this conversation. He’d been steadily draining bottles of whisky for four hours now, and had lost proper count of the bottles when his vision had doubled anyway. He squinted at the vision of Aziraphale behind his sunglasses, golden yellow eyes narrowed at the apparition.

“I just need to find a receptive body,” Aziraphale was saying. “Harder than you’d think.”

“I’m not going to go there,” he muttered. He threw back another shot of his whisky, grunting as it burned a happy path down his throat and into his stomach. He still reeked of smoke and ash, the lick of the flames still very real against his skin. He still felt the anxiety simmering on his nerves, shooting them full of adrenaline.

“I do need a body,” Aziraphale said. “Pity I can’t inhabit yours.”

Crowley choked on his whisky, spitting half of it across the table, missing the glass by miles. Aziraphale wrinkled his nose, but it wasn’t as if he was actually sitting there.

“Ooh,” Crowley said, coughing at the burn in his nose. That was not where alcohol went.

“Well,” Aziraphale continued, as though he’d been rudely interrupted. Well, he had, but still. “Angel—demon, we’d probably explode.”

“Really not going to go there,” Crowley said. He blew his nose on a handkerchief and snapped it out of existence. “Besides, that’s not how the metaphysicality of it would work.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale said, homing in on it. “And you’ve shared your body with other angels, then?”

“ _No!_ No—look, I know the math,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Remember, your lot invented it, we just use it as a torture device. It’s all very…ethereal at its crux. I’m very—just trust me, we could share the same vessel, if needs be.”

“Trust you, _really_?” Aziraphale huffed. There had been a challenge issued, and no matter how close the end of the world, the angel was stubborn. Crowley flicked bills onto the table and stum—sauntered out into the foot traffic of London.

“Yes, trust me,” Crowley said, his voice going sibilant with that much alcohol coursing through him. “We could almost _assuredly_ share a vessel. S’not like they’re not adaptive to us—how d’you think we make miracles without—y’know—exploding?”

“…then why don’t we?” Aziraphale asked, after a pause in which Crowley had furtively checked his spectacles for traces of the angel, as though he’d vanished again.

Crowley immediately careened into an alleyway, out of most of the reach of listening ears.

“Are you barmy?” he hissed. “Sure, let me just tidy up the ol’ vessel, _squinch_ the kidneys to the side so you can squeeze into the biological equivalent of a broom closet?”

“Well, you said you could, and now you can’t?” Aziraphale said, straightening and tugging on his very-not-corporeal coat. “Which is it?”

Crowley whipped in a frantic circle, which didn’t help, as Aziraphale was currently manifesting in the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses. He just ended up taking the angel with him on his full-body journey of exasperation.

“It’s Armageddon, angel!” Crowley cried. He flung his arms up and outward, gesturing to the next street over, where he caught sight of a rainsquall dumping not just rain, but fish and frogs on the frantic people scrambling to get indoors. “We don’t have time for this.”

“You’re right,” Aziraphale said. “We don’t. You know how hard it is to be down here like…like this. I can’t manifest myself for long.”

Crowley swallowed hard.

Aziraphale had a point. There was a reason angels and demons didn’t walk about on earth using their true forms. It was a massive power drain to do so—Gabriel hadn’t even done it since the coming of the Christ child. Not to mention, it was a rather conspicuous move. Not only that, but without the shielding grace of Heaven or a vessel, Aziraphale’s essence would start to peel away, pushed apart by the gravity of existing in physical form.

Not that anyone was noticing over the plagues and raining fishes, but it still wasn’t the done thing.

“I—you—oh for _fuck’s_ sake.” Crowley threaded his fingers through his hair, giving it a rough tug. “The second we can find you a new vessel is the second you’re out, you got it?”

“Got it,” Aziraphale said, looking pleased. Crowley had no idea why he was agreeing to this, not when—

Well, it was too late now.

“Ground rules.” Crowley almost muttered it, pacing in a circle. To an outsider, he must look mad as a hatter, gyrating his long limbs as he spoke to the empty air. “We need—okay, rule one. No sweets.”

“What?” Aziraphale sounded horrified.

“You heard me, angel. You’re a passenger, you don’t get to make that call. Sweets are off menu.”

“Oh…oh all _right_.” Aziraphale looked exasperated, rolling his eyes. “Anything else?”

“No good deeds,” Crowley hissed. “Not even so much as a whisper of a blessing. I’m not made for it.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Aziraphale said, his tone agreeable. They both glossed over the Arrangement, as this was a whole new contract with a whole new set of ground rules. Surely.

Obviously.

Crowley sighed, turning in one last circle to make sure that everyone was previously occupied. “All right. If we’re going to do this, might as well be now.”

He manifested a piece of chalk and got to work, drawing out the sigils from memory, his tongue poking out over his lower lip. A seven-foot circle, each sigil placed exactly seven inches apart, clustered in groups of seven.

If it had been himself he was summoning, there’d have been one less of each, but that wasn’t the point now. Right now, he was intent on lassoing an angel, and the net needed to be shaped properly or Aziraphale would slip right through it—and who knows what he’d invite inside himself without so much as a by-your-leave.

He backed up once he was done, circling it critically. Aziraphale was oddly quiet throughout; Crowley thought perhaps that he was waiting and conserving his energy.

“Angel.”

“Yes, my dear boy?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“As sure as you are. You _are_ sure, aren’t you?”

Crowley squatted and smudged away the chalk on one of the sigils, correcting it with a flourish. “If we explode, I’m haunting you.”

“Of course.”

Crowley took a deep, cleansing breath. Opening his vessel wasn’t hard; he could do this manually, but the sigils provided focus, gave Aziraphale a target.

“All right, one long-distance call, coming up.” He stepped over the lines, into the center of the circle, lifted his arms, and snapped his fingers.

“ _Oh._ ” Aziraphale’s voice was faint, like it was coming from a long distance away. “I think I see—”

Everything was _wonderful_.

Everything was…everything.

Everything was _terrible_.

Aziraphale’s true form started as a trickle, dripping down the pathway. Not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough; they’d be at this all damn month and they had less than twenty-four hours to find the antichrist.

Crowley reached out with his left foot and scraped a mark free, altering it just enough and—

It was less like being squeezed into a broom closet and more like he’d pointed a fire hose at a shot glass.

**_Let there be Light._ **

It was a form that was so bright and white that it was painful, many eyes and wheels upon wheels spinning into infinity, and it all rushed down straight into Crowley. The force of it lifted him off the ground, his heels drumming what would have been the pavement if he’d been three feet lower.

Aziraphale was _huge_. Monumental, monstrous, unknowable, _beautiful_. Feathers flew, arms and hands and other appendages, a sense of self that was Aziraphale in his entirety and the Principality rushed forth like a burst dam, down- _down_ - ** _down_** the pathway that was the highway straight into Crowley and into every opening, filling him up and drowning him in the tidal wave that was Aziraphale.

It was a storm’s heart shoved into a glass jar and capped, and Crowley might have screamed if his vocal cords hadn’t seized in the beginning. He’d swallowed a newborn star, inhaled it straight from the nebula, and there was nothing to stop its light from burning him from the inside out.

Where there was light, there was cold, not heat. Heaven had always been cold, sterile, unwelcoming, but then something changed—brushing up against the angel’s essence was a warmth, his own answering demonic energy. Coiling around each other, warily, brushing against one another in fits and starts, as though checking an electric fence for a current.

Crowley’s darkness rushed in to fill what gaps Aziraphale left, seeping into the cracks like tar and sealing them shut, boiling into a froth wherever they touched. They simmered at the edges, barely able to contain themselves as they cleared space for each other, ricocheting around the confined space and struggling to adjust.

It was no longer he and Aziraphale, but _Them_ — _Their_ own side, _Their_ own predicament, _Their_ own struggle, and Crowley was pitched back and forth inside his vessel like a ship at sea, flung into the heart of Charybdis in a rowboat.

**_Let there be Life._ **

There was a calm now, as Aziraphale situated himself, smoothing himself over and adjusting himself in Crowley’s vessel. Crowley was shoved into a deep corner, panting hard and pressed against the wall—

But there was so much…so much.

He could die from it. It was beautiful, terrible. It was overwhelming, if such a thing could ever be whelmed, this joining between occult and ethereal.

There was life. There were encapsulations of Creation, watching the Garden flicker to life beneath his hands, the angel’s fingers brushing a bud and watching it burst forth into riotous colors—some lost to the ages. Feeling the good earth beneath bare feet, the taste of plump berries when Eve offered him some. The sound of slithering in the branches.

_Didn’t you have a flaming sword?_

There was laughter. Jokes shared between them over millennia, private jests that made sense to no one but them. Amusement where it ought to have been forbidden, fondness—

**_Let there be Love._ **

It reached out, circling around him like a living thing. Devotion carded fingers through his hair, Acceptance buoyed him up and held him fast. Joy and Worthiness caught his hands, Faith and Mercy whispered sweet nothings in his ear. Forgiveness anointed him in sweet-smelling oils, pressing its lips to his skin and he buzzed with it all, a fever he would never sweat out drenching him—

His poor battered vessel was wrapped in ecstasy and reacted the only way it knew how. Crowley’s vessel arched like a drawn longbow, his arms flung out in a gesture that could be read either as welcome or abandon. The scent of myrrh warred with the scent of sulfur, finally settling into ozone, thick and crackling through the air.

His orgasm was metaphysical and physical, to the point of being painful, his skin prickling all over as he juddered through it. He wept, his head flung back and eyes staring up sightlessly at a sky that rained fish and frogs and blood.

 _Well._ Aziraphale’s thought was formless, more like an impression than actual words, but Crowley understood it nonetheless. _Now we know._

Crowley whimpered through bruised vocal cords, flat on his back in the middle of the deteriorating circle.

* * *

The walk back to the Bentley was a quiet one. Aziraphale kept to his side, as much as he could, keeping errant thoughts from spilling forth into Crowley’s consciousness. He had taken over steering their shared vessel, the demon still coiled into a ball at the back of his mind and aching.

He’d hurt him, badly. Aziraphale kept the regret clutched tightly to his center. He’d always been too argumentative for his own good, stubbornly cornering Crowley when he knew he was right. Crowley had always—somehow, despite being Original Sin and Temptation incarnate—been more of an ascetic than he was. It was only natural that his own hedonistic tendencies had overwhelmed the poor dear.

Terribly rude of him, Aziraphale knew. It was one thing to have that sort of experience willingly, but it had been his own curiosity that had pushed everything too far. He’d rather liked it, when it was with Crowley. The sensation had been interesting, and warranted a repeat performance, should he ever find another vessel. And if Crowley might be willing. If not, well, he could chalk it up as a once-in-a-lifetime sensation.

While it had not been his chosen activity because really, it had always seemed a bit of a mess, Aziraphale had to admit that there was beauty in it. Perhaps it was true that finding a proper partner—a connection—was important to him. Because if anyone might understand what experiencing it for the first time, a sensation so alien, it would be Crowley.

Poor, _dear_ Crowley.

Aziraphale pondered that as he piloted Crowley’s battered vessel back to where the Bentley was parked.

Poor Crowley hadn’t asked for Aziraphale’s tendency to fully explore and experience everything that physicality had to offer. It was only natural that his vessel had reacted that way. It was only natural that he’d been traumatized.

He’d miracled away the mess, which was less a good deed and more a service for the both of them. Not _technically_ a breach of Crowley’s ground rules. He used the soot and ash still covering Crowley’s vessel as his argument, and never would they speak of it.

A shame.

So it was that a completely tidied Crowley entered his Bentley, dug in his ridiculously tiny trouser pockets for his keys—found nothing—and then sighed.

Aziraphale glanced in the mirror, taking in the mirrored sunglasses.

“How do you make it, erm, _go_?” he asked. His voice sounded odd, coming from Crowley’s lips. His expressions were odder, the little motions looking wrong on Crowley, keeping him from remaining as still and observant as he usually was. It looked off.

_What._

“The car. How do you start it.” Aziraphale felt sluggish and stupid, stuffed full in a vessel to the brim, his arms and legs longer than his own normally were. “You don’t have a key.”

_I don’t need a key, angel._

The word sounded different, like this. It had become almost affectionate long ago, a sort of soft acceptance that Crowley was stuck with Aziraphale regardless of what happened, but spoken—or not vocalized—it was _different_. There were so many connotations, layers like a mille-feuille, sweet and tart and flavorful. Aziraphale rolled the term around in his mind, picking it apart, bit by bit.

“Earth to Aziraphale.” Crowley’s natural voice was husky, as though he’d been asleep, or drowsy. It sent a shiver through Aziraphale, though he kept it to the core of himself. No need to create a feedback loop.

“Hm?” Aziraphale dragged his attention to Crowley. It was difficult, in this body. Every sensation was completely different from how he’d experienced it in his own vessel, seen through a Crowley shaped lens.

“Miracles.” Crowley snapped their fingers and the car started. “Miracles make the world go ‘round.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale took hold of the steering wheel. “Yes, well. All right.”

“You’d best let me drive,” Crowley said. “You don’t know how.”

Aziraphale brushed gently against Crowley’s consciousness. “My dear, you’re still—”

“Stop that—” Crowley hissed. _Don’t do that!_

 _You don’t know how to drive either._ The realization hit Aziraphale like a slap to the face, and he gaped at Crowley, who was hunched over in his corner, irritation wafting off him in waves. _You never told me._

 _Of course I know how to drive,_ Crowley huffed at him. _I’ve owned a car for nearly a century, from new!_

 _You could have discorporated us!_ It was a shriek, and Crowley flinched back, even as Aziraphale struggled to get himself under control. _Crowley!_

The Bentley pulled away from the curb, Aziraphale’s control of Crowley’s feet meaning he couldn’t punch it like he usually could. The engine growled—perhaps in irritation at the angel—and Aziraphale gave in, letting Crowley do as he normally did. People, animals, and other cars leapt out of the way, even as Crowley kept it generally where it needed to go.

 _I know where we have to go_ , Aziraphale said.

“Yeah, I got a heads up from my sources, too,” Crowley said. “Not Agnes Nutter levels, of course, but still good. We’re stopping in to see him first.”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale asked. “Do we have time?”

“We have time, he’s just around the—” Crowley’s voice stuttered as Aziraphale reached out and flicked on the turn indicator. “Angel what in—”

“You could discorporate us, at _least_ use the indicators,” Aziraphale huffed. Crowley rolled their eyes and pulled up to the curb.

The familiarity of the area pinged something in Aziraphale’s awareness. He used their head to glance around, finding the little address against the brickwork.

“Oh no,” he said. “We can’t go in there.”

“Why the heaven not?” Crowley snapped, shutting off the Bentley and climbing out, despite Aziraphale’s efforts to drag their feet. Crowley had much more time in this vessel, and ownership definitely trumped tenancy here.

“Because—”

“Oi, _Shadwell_!” Crowley shouted it, slamming the door behind him as he entered the little duplex. He’d completely ignored Aziraphale’s twittering. “ _Shadwell_! I know you didn’t scarper off, mate.”

The door on the left opened, revealing an older woman wearing an absolute mound of beads and frippery. Aziraphale wondered what in the world she thought she was getting at—perhaps an old ‘mysteries of the East’ and utter nonsense to boot—but—

“Mister Shadwell is feeling unwell, sir. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Madame Tracy, what about our reading?” came a call from inside. She ducked her head back in.

“Just a moment, dears.”

Aziraphale struggled to the forefront, elbowing against Crowley in their head. “Miss—”

“Madame, thank you.” She turned back to them. “Oh! Well.”

Aziraphale and Crowley blinked at her. Almost in sync. Almost. It was lucky Crowley was still wearing his sunglasses, otherwise the effect might have been something like a gecko remembering it had more than one eyelid to close.

“Well, you don’t see that every day, do you?” She tilted her head at them. She gestured at the mirror. “That may be something I can help you with.”

They turned, and the mirror revealed them, standing together, side by side, close as could be, cheeks pressed together as though squashed by some invisible force. They turned back, Aziraphale not really wanting to get into the intrinsic properties of this particular situation.

“Oh, no, madam, we’re all right,” Aziraphale said. “I just—”

“Well, at least you know you’re both in there!” she said brightly. “I haven’t done an exorcism in years.”

“Oh good lord,” Aziraphale mumbled. Crowley winced.

“Can we not, please?” he asked.

“Well, whatever are you looking for Mister Shadwell for?” she asked.

“I’m his employer—”  
“I’m his employer—”

They froze, Crowley’s vessel going very still.

“You _what_.”

“Well, you never asked who my operatives were. It wasn’t the done thing—”

“You never bothered to check in on mine?”

“Of course not, you’d have gotten cross with me!” Aziraphale huffed it, crossing their arms, only for Crowley to fling them out again in an exasperated gesture.

“Madame Tracy, I must admit that these interruptions are highly irregular!” The portly woman behind her pushed her to the side and glared at Aziraphale and Crowley. “You there, what is your problem?! You can pay your time like the rest of us!”

Crowley whipped their body around, letting the human mask slip. Their true forms leaked free, eyes and wheels and wings and scales, beastly and unknowable. A high-pitched squeal sounded, and at first Aziraphale thought it might have been them, but it turned out to be the woman insulting Crowley, who let out the sound of steam escaping a tea kettle and stumbled past them out into the street, her two companions chasing after her.

Madame Tracy had her hand to her throat, but…she gave them a very serious look. Crowley had put the mask back in place a split second later, but she didn’t seem as bothered by it as almost all humans would have been.

“Come in, then,” she said. “I seem to have cleared my schedule. Tea?”

* * *

“So,” Madame Tracy said, pouring them each a cup of strong tea. “What do you propose we do about all this?”

Crowley rolled their eyes, but Aziraphale was in charge now, bonding with Madame Tracy. Almost psychic, with just enough of a touch to make her dangerous in the right circumstances. Thankfully, she stuck to doing seances and cold reading, which was decent enough, he supposed. Aziraphale seemed to find her company delightful, which was something Crowley hadn’t expected.

He kept his jealousy tightly reined, tucked deep within his core like the rest of his sinful self. After all, Aziraphale hadn’t mentioned anything about his reaction to sharing his vessel. Why bring it up? Perhaps Aziraphale was being polite. Perhaps he hadn’t felt how…electrifying it had been, sharing that space, where minutes had stretched to hours had stretched to days and eons, into a second. Maybe his pursuit of earthly pleasures ran their gamut and stopped at food and good books and fine clothing.

Crowley hid shame well. That had always been his first rule of being a good demon, and he tucked that away, deep within himself and away from the soft light that was Aziraphale. They could never mention it again and he’d thank whatever powers that demanded gratitude that it was so—because he really, really didn’t want to have that conversation.

_You go too fast for me, Crowley._

Desire was sinful, he’d made it so himself. He was to blame for his reaction, and it wasn’t Aziraphale’s fault.

_Are you quite all right, my dear boy?_

_Wh—yeah, fine. Does she know where Shadwell is?_

“Well, given the circumstances, we're both going to have to be extremely flexible.” Aziraphale cleared their throat. “Can you—”

“Get your hands off her, you—!” Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell finally made his appearance, shouldering through a door in the back, one that led into a boudoir, no less. Crowley’s brows rose as the grizzled old man slowed to a stop. “Oh, Mister Crowley. Where is he?”

“Who?” Madame Tracy asked.

“Some Southern pansy!” Shadwell said. “I heard him in here, making lewd suggestions!”

Oh. That was interesting. A flash of irritation from Aziraphale, darkness skittering across the light, rolling like a thundercloud across the sun. He felt Aziraphale take a firm grip on the reins.

“Not just _a_ Southern pansy, Sergeant. _The_ Southern pansy.” Aziraphale even lowered their sunglasses, giving Shadwell an unfettered view of their eyes as he grinned at the Witchfinder Sergeant. Shadwell backed up, raising his hand, index finger pointed like a child might, mimicking a gun.

_What the Heaven is this idiot doing, angel?_

_This idiot is the reason we’re sharing a body. He pushed me into the transportation portal. It was still open and—poof._

“Demon! You know what this is? Four fingers, one thumb. Now, you get out of this good woman's flat before I blast you to kingdom come.”

“ _Wrong_ ,” Crowley said, not just hissing the words but snarling them, yanking control of the reins back from Aziraphale. “He’s not the demon, I am. And you’ve been slacking on your assigned duties, Shadwell.”

He rose, slinking forward, pressing their chest right up against the pointed index finger, until he could feel it jab against their breastbone.

“You might want to rethink who you threaten, Shadwell,” Crowley hissed. “He might be an angel, but I most definitely am not. _Sit_.”

Shadwell skittered into the room, moving in a wide berth around Crowley’s vessel and dropping himself onto one of Madame Tracy’s spindly chairs. Crowley slunk back over, seating himself across from him.

“That's the trouble, Mr. Shadwell. Kingdom come. It's going to.” Madame Tracy was right there, with another cup of hot tea for Shadwell, right by his hand. “Mr. Aziraphale has just been explaining it. You come and have a nice cup of tea, and listen to him.”

_He doesn’t deserve her._

_Mm. Drink your tea, angel. Mind how much sugar you dump in there._

Crowley kept watch on Shadwell while Aziraphale began to explain.

* * *

The M25 was on fire.

_Right. Odegra. Damn._

_Odegra? “Hail the great beast, devourer of worlds?”_

_Yeh, look—it was 1986 and I was exceedingly clever in setting this all up. Didn’t even get a ‘wahoo’ for my efforts._

_Oh, well, wahoo, I suppose. How the hell are we going to get to Tadfield?_

Madame Tracy and Sergeant Shadwell were crammed into the backseat of the Bentley, watching the cars around them grind to a halt. Shadwell’s gun was braced across their laps, the two humans buckled in. Crowley drummed the steering wheel with impatient fingers, then dug for the book.

He began thumbing through the scorched pages, the paper flaking away at his touch. There was a sense of loss from Aziraphale that made him slow down, but only just.

“Come on. There must be a way across it. Burning roads. You predict this, Agnes? Why isn't there an index?”

All four of them startled when the lenses of Crowley’s sunglasses shattered on his face. He and Aziraphale turned, catching a glimpse of black, beady eyes. Grey, dead skin. Pale, thin lips. Maggots, devourers of flesh.

_Shit. Shit shit shit!_

_Who is that?_

_Hastur._

Fear. Sick and twisting through him, Crowley glanced at the humans in his back seat.

Aziraphale snapped their fingers, and they were gone—Crowley felt rather than understood that they were deposited at the bus stop in Tadfield. At least, in the general sense of things, that was where they were taken. In the general area. Hopefully.

_Would have been nice for us._

_I can’t focus my miracles correctly in your vessel, dear boy. I could do us or them, and we have a rather better chance than they do. We’ll get ourselves out._

_Don’t be so sure, angel._ He took a deep, unneeded breath. _No, no. It’s fine. It’s **fine**. We’ll be—_

“Hastur,” Crowley said, grinning. “How was your time in voice mail?”

“Funny, ha-ha.” Hastur’s voice was a choking, raspy noise. “Joke all you like, Crowley. There's nowhere to run.”

“Aren't you to be lining up, ready for battle around now?” Crowley asked. “War to get on, and all that.”

“Hell will not forget. Hell will not forgive.” Hastur slowly crumpled Crowley’s sunglasses, warping the frames and smashing the rest of the lenses. “You know where the real Antichrist is, don't you? You'll never reach him. You're done, Crowley.”

Hastur pointed out the windscreen at the roaring wall of fire. “Think you're going to get across that? There's nowhere to go.”

“Let’s find out,” Crowley said. He jammed his foot down on the accelerator, and the Bentley roared forward like a caged animal being set free. Cars were slammed out of its way, the specific miracles that made her go making them jump away so she wasn’t hit.

_Angel, you’re going to have to think of something._

_Looks like you have it well in hand, Crowley._

_That’s hellfire, Aziraphale. I don’t think we’ll survive that._

Aziraphale brushed against Crowley inside the vessel, that strange near-boiling sensation as their senses of self blended, colliding as they touched. Crowley vocalized something, but it came out as a low, keening noise rather than words.

_Hastur—was this what your insurance policy was for?_

_My—stop that, get out of there—no!_

But it was too late, Aziraphale found what he was looking for, cupping the knowledge in his hands like a lit coal. It lit something within the angel’s essence, the white dimming to pink, then darkening. Red streaks through Aziraphale’s being, like bloodied scratches, tearing through the walls of affability and politeness, radiating—

Anger. Righteousness. _Vengeance._

It was a feedback loop of rage, of violence, one that Crowley had been hardly prepared for as it buffeted against him. He kept the car on its tracks.

_He was the one you wanted the holy water for?_

_Angel—_

**_Was he_ ** _?_

_Aziraphale—_

“Hastur.”

The demon looked over, blinking rapidly. A death grip on the Bentley’s dash suddenly tightened as he realized he wasn’t staring at Crowley any longer. Crowley’s hand landed smack in the middle of his face, gripping Hastur’s forehead.

There was a thin, high scream as Aziraphale did—something. Hastur’s form solidified, drying out and turning even more paper white than before, a pillar of salt on the Bentley’s plush leather seats. He opened the door and puffed a breath toward it, even as the car did ninety toward a burning wall of hellfire, letting the salt blow away in the wind.

He glanced into the mirror, and Crowley’s eyes—no, not Crowley’s eyes. Fully Aziraphale, hazel and kind—beautiful even—gazed back at him, wearing triumph like a mantle and smugness like a laurel crown. Crowley pulled their foot off the accelerator.

“A pity it wasn’t my own body,” Aziraphale said. “We’d have never seen Hastur again.”

“I don’t have the—” Crowley shook out their numb left hand. “I can’t do that sort of thing anymore.”

“Oh, dreadfully sorry, my dear boy,” Aziraphale said, bringing their left hand up to examine it. “I should be more thoughtful. Not much for divine punishment as it is, that’s more Sandalphon’s wheelhouse—”

That was a thought to ponder later. That red wall of rage, all for someone who thought to hurt _him_.

“Still aren’t getting through this hellfire, angel,” Crowley reminded him.

“We are,” Aziraphale said. He took their foot and put it back on the accelerator.

“Angel, no—”

“I have faith in you, Crowley.”

Crowley moaned. “No, no—don’t _say_ that.”

“But I do,” Aziraphale replied. “We need to get to Tadfield. We need to get to Adam. And you’re going to have to do it.”

_Don’t make me kill you._

_I trust you._

_Don’t—_

_I can’t be in control when we hit that hellfire, Crowley. It has to be you. You’re the only one who can do it. Consider it a favor._

Aziraphale’s voice was steel; the stubbornness was almost a physical wall between them.

_You must._

_I can’t._

_But you will._

**_ Damn _ ** _you._

_Might be, when this is all over. We’ll just have to see._

Crowley exhaled a shaky breath and glanced in the mirror. Aziraphale had retreated, leaving his own yellow eyes staring back at him in the rearview. The angel had buried himself deep within Crowley’s vessel, tucked in his ribcage, just behind his heart. He pressed a hand there, an answering warmth that wasn’t him made his lips twist and his entire being ache.

The Bentley idled beneath him, her engine growling; a monstrosity, a beautiful machine.

“Well,” he said, putting her in gear. “If you’re going to go, do it with style.”

He floored it.

* * *

The Bentley petered to a stop right at the gates of Tadfield airbase, careening off potholes while still sputtering flames like a dying star. Crowley threw himself from the driver’s seat, flinging himself into the damp grass to roll out the last of the hellfire dripping off his lanky frame.

_Angel! Angel, speak to me._

He patted his chest, pressing his fingers against his ribcage, the frantic thud of his heart the only sensation for a long, interminable minute. If he could, he’d have clawed his chest open, searching for the angel’s presence.

_Aziraphale!_

Groggy, like waking from a long nap, the angel uncurled, meeting his frantic brushes with his own, gentle and soothing. Crowley’s voice rose in a sob.

_…is it over?_

_Oh, thank Go—Sat—someone. Are you hurt?_

_No. No, I think I’m all right._

_We’re through. We’re in Tadfield._

_Do you have the book?_

Crowley patted his chest, where the book sat.

_Brilliant work, my dear boy. I’m so proud of you._

There was a garbled string of noises from Crowley’s lips that might have been curses, had he had any real way to vocalize them. There was a touch of amusement from the angel as he sat them up, dusting them off as they looked around. Shadwell and Madame Tracy were arguing with a gentleman at the gate, requesting access when—

The Bentley, at the end of her long time of service, exploded.

A low, animal sound rent from Crowley’s vocal cords as they stumbled toward her. The poor thing. Crowley scooped up her jack handle, falling to their knees.

“Ninety years and not a scratch, now look at you.” He pressed the warm metal to their forehead, then their lips. “You were a good car.”

There was an answering sliver of sorrow from Aziraphale. Crowley felt the echo in their chest, the same sense of bereft melancholy, the loss. Belatedly, he remembered the book shop.

Aziraphale hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye.

_We need to get a wiggle-on, Crowley. It’s happening._

_I’m having a **moment** —did you say ‘wiggle-on’?_

_Really? Come on, up we get._

Aziraphale got them to their feet as four children sped through the gates of the air base. The guard went running after them, and Crowley loped after, along with Shadwell and Madame Tracy.

* * *

“Excuse me, why are you two people?” Adam’s voice cut through the argument they were having about the niceties of killing him for the greater good. “It’s not right.”

“Uh, well, it’s a long story—” Aziraphale began.

“You should go back to being two separate people again.”

An eleven-year-old should not have the force behind his words that Adam did. It wasn’t just a suggestion, it was an imperative, with the implication that there was nothing Crowley could have done to stop it.

Crowley’s whole body flooded with a twinning sense of self, combing through and separating how he and Aziraphale mingled. Dividing them, parting them like the Red Sea, lifting them off the ground and pulling them apart like a particularly good salt water taffy.

It was the same sensation he’d felt as when Aziraphale had rushed down the conduit to meet him. Untangling himself from Aziraphale was torture, cold leaving him too hot in his own flesh as he rushed to fill the emptiness; somehow, he had a feeling like he’d feel hollow, incomplete, at least a little bit.

For the second time in forty-eight hours, Crowley found himself staring up at a blood red sky, flat on his back and with his voice hoarse from screaming. Euphoria, pain, pleasure? It was all of the above, and not like that at all—a sensation so totally unique it would take experiencing it for oneself for the breadth of it to be understood.

It also left him rather grouchy.

“I really _wish_ people would stop doing that without my permission!” he hissed aloud.

“Oh dear. Are you quite all right?” Aziraphale asked, peering down at him.

Crowley was so glad to see him in his usual vessel. He’d have cried, but he’d done quite enough of that lately, and it was tiresome to get himself to stop once he’d started. He sighed, instead.

Crowley let his head thump back against the tarmac. “I need a minute.”

“We haven’t got one,” Aziraphale said, offering his hand. “Come on, up you get.”

Crowley took it, allowing Aziraphale to pull him from the ground. His knees still weren’t working right, and that was fair—each of those times had been a mind-blowing orgasm, not that anyone else needed to know about it. He sniffed, delicately. He definitely needed a shower. Or at least a miracle to clean up once this was done.

“Is that your sword?” Crowley asked, feeling sluggish and stupid.

“Mm,” Aziraphale said. “Made its way back around eventually.”

It looked very right in his hand, though Crowley couldn’t say why. Perhaps it was the circle completing. Perhaps this was the end of them, and it was fitting that the angel willing to avenge him by turning a rival into a pillar of salt…well. It was a good look for him, really.

He tightened his grip on his own jack handle.

Death spread their wings, enveloping the sky in stars—no, not stars. Crowley knew stars. Those were not stars. Either way, they were gone shortly after, leaving Beelzebub and Gabriel in their place.

* * *

Nightingales singing in Berkley Square were a minor miracle compared to the switcheroo pulled off weeks prior. Not to be smug, but it was hardly Agnes’s prophecy that had prompted the body swap – and they’d pulled it off brilliantly because they knew each other inside and out, now.

Crowley and Aziraphale had earned themselves at least a reprieve, if not total peace. The demon was content with it, because it meant so much more time spent doing the things he liked; namely, causing minor mischief and spending time with Aziraphale.

It was like an itch beneath his skin now, needing to be close to him. He’d seen him as no other angel or demon had seen him; pressed flush against his core and surrounding him like the nebula to a newborn star. Thankfully, Aziraphale seemed like he felt the same, and they’d spent many enjoyable days together, including today.

They’d popped open a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1787 and were about to partake of a rather nice fruit and cheese platter Crowley had put together for the afternoon. Wine cellars in London weren't rare, and neither were cellars in Soho, but...Aziraphale's stretched for a good block and a half both ways, tucked between where people would think to notice such a thing. He had impeccable taste in alcohol, much to Crowley's delight. Also, he had _lots_ of it, which was even better.

It was too bad that he was completely sober when Aziraphale decided to ruin the afternoon.

He’d just worked the cork free of the bottle and moved to pour, when Aziraphale placed his hand over Crowley’s. They were closer than they’d ever been, the heat radiating off Aziraphale’s vessel still new and strange, when Crowley had almost become used to feeling it from the inside.

“We should talk, Crowley,” Aziraphale said.

“Have been, all afternoon,” Crowley said, trying for flippant and ending up somewhere south of petulant.

“Yes, about inconsequential things,” Aziraphale said. “I feel that I owe you an apology at best, several at worst.”

“What for?” Crowley asked. Truly, he was baffled. They’d stopped Armageddon, they’d saved the bloody world. What else was there to apologize for?

_It’s over, Crowley._

_I don’t even like you._

Oh.

Right. That.

He took a steadying breath. “Don’t think I want t’be sober for this, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It isn’t all the same to me, Crowley.” Aziraphale said. “I owe you a great many apologies, for a great many things, spanning since before we left Eden. But let me at least apologize for this week.”

“Don’t,” Crowley said, the word tasting miserable in his mouth.

“I’m going to,” Aziraphale said. “Because really, what happened with your vessel—”

“It’s done with,” Crowley said. “I just did—”

“Something incredibly selfless, and I ruined it, with my indulgent and hedonistic ways,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley’s jaw must have unhinged; he swore it was on the floor.

“What.”

“The, erm. Well, your reaction. To the conduit. It was my fault.” Aziraphale twisted his fingers together, frowning. “You shouldn’t have had to deal with my own curiosity—”

“Your what?” Crowley said. “It was my own wanting to…to—”

Their words tangled, binding up and making them both grind to a halt, staring at each other.

“My curiosity,” Aziraphale said again. “I’d never partaken in that particular realm of human activity before. It was messy, loud, and rather unsavory, at least—it was. Then, over time, I’d begun to think that perhaps, if it were with you, it might not be terrible. Or it might even be wonderful. And the more I thought about it, and about you, the more I thought it might lean toward wonderful. So when I felt—when I began to feel what you were feeling, I’d wanted to experience it with you.”

Crowley felt like he was glued to the spot, watching Aziraphale speak, the way his lips formed the words.

“It was…you were beautiful,” Aziraphale said. “I caught myself thinking that you must have been lovely before you Fell, but then I realized that you were beautiful then. You were breathtaking. And then you spent the drive curled up in a corner like I’d shamed you, and that had never been my intention, and I’m _sorry,_ Crowley.”

“I…it wasn’t you,” Crowley said. “Well, it was you, but it wasn’t your fault. I—”

He swallowed, reminding himself that it wasn’t like they hadn’t spent time pressed together closer than this.

“I wanted you,” he admitted. “Like that. Just like that, but that was the worst feeling, because it would be—they’d kill us both. And I know that. I knew it. And I didn’t care, because I wanted it anyway. But you’re my best friend. And you already said I went—I wouldn’t just—put it out there, let you deal with it, especially when you were so determined to be on Heaven’s side.”

“I’m not on Heaven’s side anymore,” Aziraphale said.

“I’m not on Hell’s.” Crowley’s words were hushed.

“We’re rather out on a limb for ourselves, aren’t we?” Aziraphale said. He still hadn’t let go of Crowley’s hand.

“You could say that,” he said.

“Hm.” Aziraphale linked their fingers, drawing Crowley away from the wineglasses. “I think I’m rather fond of that.”

“Is this a sin?” Crowley asked, watching Aziraphale warily, his golden eyes tracking the angel as he lifted Crowley’s palm to his lips, pressing a reverent kiss to his palm.

“If it is, you’ll catch me if I Fall,” Aziraphale said. “You always would.”

Crowley cupped Aziraphale’s face, resting his forehead against his. He was buzzing with a low-grade fever. He felt echoes of that rush, trembling in every limb as he felt himself sinking into the sensation of Aziraphale’s hands on him. He nodded, slowly.

“I’d catch you,” he said. His voice was husky, reverent. “Of course, I’d catch you.”

“Oh, my dear boy, I do love you.” Azirphale’s voice was soft, soft enough that if Crowley hadn’t heard the words singing in his blood since Armageddon, a remnant of Aziraphale’s time beside him, he would have missed them. It was said with the same wonder of a man who’d discovered beauty for the first time. Crowley had touched enough of Aziraphale to know that it was true. Like he knew himself, he knew the angel, sinking into him and through him.

“I know,” he said. “I love you. I think I’ve always done.”

“Even after—all the things between us?”

“Because of them,” Crowley replied. “Who else would put up with me?”

Aziraphale laughed, the sound like springtime in his soul, and Crowley chuckled along. When the angel pressed his lips to Crowley’s, he answered, opening and blooming beneath Aziraphale’s touch, his sighs swallowed by the most indulgent being he’d ever known.

They parted, Crowley’s knees feeling distinctly weak, and Aziraphale tugged him over to the squashy couch that had been Crowley’s since it appeared in the shop sometime in 1819. They sank down, laughing like children, joy seeping into every corner of their beings as they clung together, their own side, their own destiny, their own lives.

“You know you owe me dinner,” Crowley said to Aziraphale’s lower lip after tugging it gently with his teeth.

“Do I?” Aziraphale asked. “Are we still counting?”

“Well, usually I don’t put out on the first date,” Crowley said, making Aziraphale pull back and stare at him, disbelieving. “I usually insist on at least…a drink.”

“So you, you’ve—erm— _put out_ before?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley’s grin was sharp in his face, but his tone was soft. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to Aziraphale’s jaw. Aziraphale’s fingers fisted in his shirt, but he was gentle, nuzzling at him like he was precious, for he was.

“As far as firsts go, you’re my first to make me come in my trousers simply by possessing my vessel,” he murmured against the soft, beloved earlobe, feeling the shudder slide through Aziraphale’s vessel at the implication. “I think dinner is in order.”

“That can be arranged,” Aziraphale said, manicured fingers sliding into Crowley’s hair. That was enough for Crowley, and content, he claimed Aziraphale’s laughing mouth.

He was whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that sure was a thing. Based on a [tumblr](https://tawghasa.tumblr.com/post/186088204238) post that grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let me be, I set it to the side and let it percolate and suddenly I burped out about 7500 words of this. Hopefully you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it, honestly it was a comedy of errors, as it should have been.


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